Counting
by dragonwings948
Summary: Just how many children were on Gallifrey that day? One lonely night, the Doctor counts. Copyright to the BBC.


_Explosions. Gunfire. Burning flames. Unearthly screams._

_ "Exterminate!" _

_ The Doctor rolled to the side as a Dalek's laser flew over him. He panted from exertion as he examined the chaos around him. Bodies were strewn carelessly all over the place. Innocent people were running wild, knowing there was no escape no matter how far away they tried to hide. _

_ "No more." The Doctor uttered the phrase to himself. It had become almost like his motto. _No more.

_ The building next to him blew into the sky, and the wailing cries of children became evident from inside. Wasn't there some way he could save them all? Some way he could stop this madness? _

_ He stood amidst the turmoil, surrounded by the bodies of his own people. And he was helpless...or maybe not. _

_ No more. _

The Doctor stirred and rubbed a hand over his eyes. The familiar hum of the TARDIS engine consoled his senses, and its soft blue light was a welcome, though still fairly new, sight. He sighed and sat up in the chair beside the console.

They were gone now, every last one of them, all because of him. All the good men, innocent women, carefree children... Just how many of them had there been?

The Doctor jumped to his feet and patted the console's screen. "Let's see what you've got, old girl."

He started at the sound of his own voice. It was rarely heard, as he seldom talked to himself out loud and he had no one to talk to. How long had he had this body now? A few months? Years? He didn't care enough to keep track.

_The records. She'll still have the records, right?_

The Doctor's fingers flew across the console's keyboard. He pressed enter and looked up at the screen. "Item not found," it read in big red letters.

He let his hands fall to his sides. _Of course. I deleted those, didn't I? _Tugging on his ear (which felt huge, though he hadn't looked in a mirror yet), he thought hard. What good would this do him? Why was he doing it anyway?

_Because I have to know, _he thought to himself.

"You should have images and film from that day," the Doctor muttered as he searched for the file among the millions stored in the TARDIS database.

There it was. The fall of Arcadia, the towers burning and millions of bodies piled in mangled heaps. The TARDIS had retained still photographs of the entire planet from that day; he had forgotten about that, or else he would have deleted them a long time ago. It was good that she had them. He would rather count faces.

The Doctor zoomed in to the picture until he could see the individual faces of time lords and Daleks alike. He focused on the face of one little girl, her dark hair flowing out behind her as she ran.

"One," said the Doctor as he committed her face to memory. His gaze shifted to a light-haired boy donning a red cape lying on the ground, his hands glowing as if he was going to regenerate. "Two...Three...Four..."

_2.47 billion. _The number was seared into the Doctor's brain forever. All the innocent children he had burned...

Tears flowed freely down his face. He wiped them away with sleeve, the distinct smell of worn leather left in his nose.

Why had he done it? He could have come up with some other way. Any other way. But no, they were wiped clean off the face of the universe because of his folly. He had chosen wrong, though what the right choice had been, he still didn't know.

Try as he might, the Doctor couldn't remember the moment he had done it. All he could recall was his worn and withered hand on a big red button...no, three hands. Who the other two hands belonged to, he didn't know. And there was a women's face with full lips, piercing eyes, and blond hair falling down in a cascade of ringlets. He couldn't remember her either, or who she was. Her entire face refused to present itself in his memory.

An alarm blared throughout the TARDIS. The Doctor jumped up and scanned the console's screen. The TARDIS had detected some sort of harmful, worldwide threat in London, and now presented him with the readings...

Autons. It could only be autons.

Why he had chosen to keep a close watch on Earth, he wasn't sure. It gave him something to keep his mind off of Gallifrey, perhaps, and he had always had a special fondness for humans anyway.

The Doctor shifted the TARDIS into gear and set the destination for London. His existence was a lonely one, but at least he could save humans in recompense for the billions of time lords he had killed. Still, no matter how many he saved, he knew he could never forgive himself for all he had destroyed.

He balked as he looked at the date on the readings. London held millions of people in 2005, much too many for comfort. If someone saw him or the TARDIS, they would become curious. And curious people usually either wanted to capture him or travel with him.

He hadn't had a companion since before the Time War, and he didn't intend on having one ever again. He would rather spend the rest of his years wallowing in his own misery. He deserved it.

_Plan: get in, get out. Nothing more, nothing less. _

No talking to anyone; it would be too much of a risk. If anyone asked about him or his TARDIS, the Doctor would ignore them. He wouldn't ask anyone to travel with him, no matter how much they pleaded.

Little did he know how futile his precautions were.


End file.
